


Apotheosis

by SilentDurian



Category: Hyperdimension Neptunia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:42:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26042899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentDurian/pseuds/SilentDurian
Summary: In a small factory town on the southeastern edges of Lowee, an idea is born of the oppression and the ignorance of the ruler of the land. Such is the conception of a new Goddess, of a new nation.
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue: secession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unrest brews in the far north of Gamindustri. As the Lowee struggles in her war against Planeptune, one town’s pleas was ignored one too many times, and the push to action is stronger than ever.

A young girl with short white hair entered the basilicom branch, head bowed low. “What of this town now, girl?” An old an tired voice asked her. She raised her head to look at the voice asking her, and sees the town elder, as well as many of the town’s citizens hiding from the blizzard roaring outside within the marginally warmer basilicom. Looking at their hopeful eyes, she couldn’t help but avert her eyes in shame, knowing that her failure will once again doom a few more in this town to starvation, or to the wolves in their desperate hunt for just enough food to last the town another moon.

The elder stepped forward slowly, leg wobbling with every step, and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, “I won’t blame you, Kei, no matter how bad it is. I know you tried your b-”,’ _My best isn’t enough, grandpa!”_

A dreadful silence follows that outburst. Everyone gathered in the basilicom knows what those words meant for them. For the previous time Kei has visited the capital to plea for food and supplies was ignored, as well as the many and repeated pleas from the previous bishop before he gave up his ration for the factory workers and succumbed to starvation soon after.

Seeing the elder’s leg shake further, an adolescent girl quickly pulled a chair for the elder to fall onto, as he does moments after. He looks to the floor, as the realization of the town’s fate sinks in, and truly panics now. Kei quickly rushed to him and rubbed his back in a bid to calm him down. After a few minutes of doing so, he took in a deep breath, and said, “Gather everyone here. I have an announcement to make.”

* * *

Once the blizzard died down, everyone inside the basilicom spread out to call for everyone in the town to gather. Soon after people start pouring into the basilicom, despite their long-waning faith in their Goddess. By dusk, everyone has been gathered, and the elder stood in the podium with the town’s bishop, Kei at his side.

“3 years now.” The elder’s voice, though weak, echoes throughout the cramped basilicom, the meaning of those words rang heavy in everyone’s minds. “3 years since... since bishop Ken, my son, started pleading to everyone in the capital for help for us. Every month, in the bishop’s meeting with the other bishops, with the oracle, the nobles, even the Goddess herself.” He stopped speaking for a minute to catch his breath, and everyone is once again reminded of how long it truly was since any of them had a decent meal. “And he was ignored everytime. Once, he told me he even p-p-prostrated himself in the meeting, to beg from those nobles, or the other towns with too much food, or _anyone_ even, but you know what the Goddess did to him?” The whole town was shocked at this, for they knew the late bishop to be a very proud man, and would never have begged for anyone for scraps. “She... S-S- _She kicked him out of the meeting! Called him and us lazy and worthless scums! It was_ _ **us**_ _who makes a lot of Lowee Army’s weapons and armor, it was_ _ **us**_ _who makes most of the heaters and furnaces stopping the rest of Lowee from freezing, and, and_ , *cough*,*hack*,*cough*” His tirade was stopped short by his hacking cough, and Kei had to soothe him once again.

After he calmed down, he continues once more, “We can’t... We can’t go on like this. We’ll have to, have to... **leave**.”

That one word, just that one word shook the whole town. After some period of silence, murmurs were heard among the people, questioning, considering the prospect of leaving the only town they all knew their whole lives.

“It was Ken who came up with the idea.” That sentence once again gave the people pause. It was quite unimaginable that a bishop in service of the Goddess would suggest secession. But perhaps seeing suffering and death everyday changed him, for better or for worse. Knowing that their beloved late bishop was the one to suggest this, the townspeople rallied themselves to the idea. “What’s the plan?” At that voice from the crowd, everyone’s eyes became determined.

* * *

A week after, a contingent of Lowee troops arrived in town to pick up weapons and armors produced in the factory. Seeing none of the crates prepared at the usual pick-up point, the soldiers marched towards the town hall to demand explanation, not yet noticing much amiss in the town. Slamming the door open, they are greeted with the sight of the town elder sitting quite comfortably in his chair facing the dozens of soldiers. “What is the meaning of this!”, shouted the captain.

In an eeriely calm voice, the elder says, “This town, who your goddess doesn’t even deign to name, will no longer be part of Lowee. The young have escaped with the supplies needed, away from this accursed land.” Though the captain tried to interrupt, the elder continues, “You and I, however, will vanish from the face of Gamindustri, along with this town.”

*Click*

* * *

“Lady White Heart, an emergency report from the troops of the southeastern outpost.” said the bespectacled oracle, as she handed the report to the land’s CPU. Roughly yanking the report from the oracle’s hands, a tired looking young girl with brown hair read the report once. Then twice. Then one more time to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating from the beating she just received from the other goddess to the south. Moments later, the sound of White Heart’s scream can be heard across the capital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This will be my first ever fic, and my native language isn't English, so comments and criticism are very much appreciated.
> 
> Now regarding the setting, it's set in an alternate dimension of Neptunia, and while the overall theme of the fic will be more serious, I will try to keep aspects of the characters' personality somewhat in line with canon (for example, Blanc's temper in this chapter), though I will warn beforehand that certain parts of the personality that is much too comical will be altered or removed to go with the theme.
> 
> Regarding ships and such, I already have a plan on who goes with who, but it most likely won't be featured in this story. The most this will show is characters considering it passingly. It'll probably be very much later in the story or in a sequel.
> 
> Lastly, I have no idea how often I can post chapters, if at all, since this is my first venture into producing literature (instead of just consuming it), but I will try to post a new chapter in a regular pattern.


	2. Genesis in Reverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soon, a new goddess will be born. Back to the capital of Lowee, however, and things does not look so well for the older goddess.

Beyond the snowfields of Lowee, a group of rebels for the first time saw what it is like beyond the confines of their little commune.From a lightly snowed hill, they see white gave way for green for the first time, and finally do they truly feel like they have escaped Lowee. Once scouts reports that no Lowee troops are spotted, the group continue their march for a new home at a more relaxed pace to catch their breath.

Come dusk, the group found an opening large enough for them to set up camp, and Kei, the newly appointed leader of the group discusses with everyone the state they are in right now. After a few moments of deep breathing, she finally felt composed enough to start speaking. “We’re not completely safe yet. The region southeast of Lowee is known to contain many small fledgling nations constantly at war and constantly spawning, and we just become one of said nation.”

At that statement, everyone is now paying full attention to Kei, wanting to know how they would survive this next trial. “We have 4 options for now.”

Taking another breath, she continues, “First, we join one of the countless micronations here, and with our assistance they, as well as we, will have better chance of survival. Or second, we can march west towards Planeptune, this supposed sworn enemy of Lowee. But I will tell you, that the first two options i just mentioned will put us at the mercy of another goddess, one we have no idea about.” A young man was about to interject before Kei stopped him, “Please, let me finish listing all of the options before you say your piece.” At that, the man sat back down and continue to listen intently.

“Third, we go at it alone, with no deity to help us. There are no records of places like this, either because no one ever tried, or all attempts at this promptly fails; the archives never had any information of such.”

“Finally,” massaging her forehead for a bit before continuing, “We create our own goddess.” At that all eyes and ears are towards Kei. Murmurs and whispers immediately picks up, as none has ever heard of such a thing. “Let me explain,” Kei said, before continuing, “I said before that goddesses and nations appear and disappear constantly here. That phenomena has been studied in the past, information about it was passed down to me from my father.” Walking to one of the storage cars she picked up a few items and continued explaining, “I picked up a few items in my last visit to the capital. One of them is this,” Kei opened her right hand, showing a black crystal that seems to absorb light, with a power symbol engraved on it. “This is a CPU Memory, and it can create a Goddess, and it won’t be some negligent goddess, or some goddess of a foreign land, it will be ours, because it will be our will that brings our goddess into existence.”

* * *

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST THEM?! SEND MORE TROOPS AFTER THEM! NOW!” The rage-fueled tirade of the white-themed Goddess sends all personnel in the basilicom cowering in fear, with the exception of the one bespectacled oracle.

“With respect, lady White Heart, I do not think that is a wise decision.” The oracle’s calm voice cut through the ruckus. White Heart’s eyes quickly darted to where the oracle stood, to see the blue haired oracle staring back at her with eyes conveying defiance. Whether White Heart was about to retort or shout another threat, she miraculously swallowed those words and instead somewhat more calmly said, “Explain, Mina.”

Taking out some papers, Mina began explaining her reasoning. “The whole of the southeast region of Lowee’s faith in you has always been shaky at best.  A recent examination of the share unit generation per capita of the region implies that the average person generates at best a tenth of a typical capital citizen. This on top of the fact that you pointedly ignored all the local representatives from the region in the monthly basilicom meeting in favor of these,” pausing for a moment to glance sideways, Mina made eye contact with a few nobles and gave them a withering glare before focusing back on White Heart and continuing, “other regions’ representatives’ request, have caused severe resentment against you to build up in the region.  More armed soldiers coming to the area will just cause resentment to rise even more, to the point of even urging the other towns in the region to secede as well. ”

F inally sitting down from her position floating in the air, White Heart rubbed the side of her head as if nursing a massive headache, and asked her oracle, “Why the  _fuck_ would they need help anyway? Last I checked, that’s Lowee’s most productive region. Looks to me like they’re just greedy bastards, all of them.” This sentiment was immediately parroted by some others presenet in the meeting, particularly so by the few nobles Mina glared at moments ago. Heaving the heaviest sigh she could manage, the oracle explains, with more exasperation than ever, “Yes, lady White Heart, the most productive in everything but food. The mines are rich with minerals, the factories producing weapons and armors for our troops, and the ateliers can only produce poison and explosives with the local materials. The land, however, is barren, on top of the location sandwiched between two mountain ranges, meaning winter there is so cold nothing can grow. Their sole source of food is hunting beyond Lowee’ s borders further southeast, where the monsters are so deadly no soldiers in their right mind would even go close.”

Not sure how  to react to all of this information, White Heart resorted to the emotion she is most intimate with – anger. With veins already starting to pop on her forehead, she zeroed her attention to the supposed governor of the region, “WHY THE  _**FUCK** _ AM I JUST FINDING THIS OUT NOW?! AND FROM SOMEONE OTHER THAN  _**YOU; YOU** _ , WHO’S SUPPOSED TO BE MY EYES THERE! YOU’VE NEVER EVEN  _**BEEN** _ THERE HAVEN’T YOU?!” Her anger reaching well past the critical point,  she stood on the table and condensed share energy into her hand, then summoned her axe and threw her axe to hit right next to the soon-to-be unimportant NPC. “YOU’RE FIRED! FIRED, I TELL YOU! DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE SHOW YOUR FACE ANYMORE!” With every word shouted out by White Heart, the former governor’s facade seems to shrink, and when it finishes, he promptly ejected himself from the basilicom as fast as his feet allowed him.

Once the debacle was over, White Heart stayed standing at the table for a while to catch her breath, then floated back to her chair and buried her head in her hands. Right now, the already small goddess looks even smaller than she already is.  After mumbling a few more choice words from behind her hands, she finally asks her oracle for advice, “What.... *sigh* What do you propose I do then.”

Shaking her head, the oracle simply said, “You will simply have to prove yourself worthy of their faith, before they decide another goddess is more deserving of it.

* * *

Ever attentive to detail, it took Kei awhile to prepare the ritual to bring about the birth of a goddess. Well beyond sunset, preparation finally complete, the people crowds around the dubbed ‘ritual circle’, which looks much more technologically advanced than the name implies. Circuit and cables running across the ground in a concentric circle, with the CPU memory mounted on a device in the middle, broken-off pieces of quartz-like sharicite at twelve points around the circle, with the circuit connected to magical reactors salvaged from monsters, powered by dragon souls. Finished with the final inspection of the setup, Kei addressed the crowd, “Now to review, the moment I give the signal, the four assigned at the reactors turn on their assigned reactors at the same time, the two technicians keep an eye on the circuit, make sure nothing shorts, and everyone, including the technicians and the four at the reactor, focus your will, your faith, your heart, to the crystal mounted in the middle, and do not stop. Ready?” Surveying the crowd around her, she only sees determined and desperate eyes, all ready for the moment of truth.

Slowly raising her right arm, with what seems to be the whole world focusing on her hand, she took one shuddering breath before joining the crowd in determination. As her hands descend and she opens her mouth, time seems to slow as she caught every detail of those few moments and commits them to memory. Reactor 1 and 3 turns on at the same time first, 4 follows moments behind, while the hand of the one assigned to reactor 2 shuddered and finally the last reactor turns on one whole second behind the others; white sparks of energy flowed from the reactors to the circuit, first to the sharicites, then flowing towards the CPU Memory with even greater intensity. The smell of brimstone and burnt ozone quickly permeated the area, with the technicians in awe at the circuit, which, despite now being burnt to crisps, energy now flows towards the CPU Memory with less resistance than before. This all lasts for one whole minute before the reactors ran dry of fuel to burn, and the energy previously flowing torrentially towards the core now slows down to a trickle.

Kei’s mind was running through all the scenarios now, did they do the steps wrong? Were the instructions flawed? Or was the book on the CPU ritual simply to give false hope? Before anyone can come to any conclusion, the CPU Memory detached itself from its mount and floated slightly above the setup, all eyes now on it. Tendrils of dark energy slowly reaches out from the CPU Memory towards the sharicites, and, once the tendrils touched the sharicites, a pillar of such blinding darkness shot up to the skies, encompassing the ritual setup. All light in a massive radius seems to be blotted out, with darkness so thick and concrete the pillar is visible from Planeptune.

As the darkness fades and vision returns to all around, the crowd now sees a silhouette standing up from where the CPU Memory used to be. First visible was the messy but lustrous white hair, although many would claim they first saw the figure which is ‘definitely bigger than White Heart in some places’. As she stood up fully, she finally opens her eyes, and upon seeing the power symbol shaped pupils etched upon the cyan irises, Kei immediately reacted, “All hail our Goddess, Lady Black Heart!” Shaken out of their stupor, the crowd repeated Kei’s chant  with greater vigor than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go, the second chapter. While I didn't set a fixed date for when this chapter would come out, it was still later than what I liked.
> 
> Anyway, comments are appreciated.


End file.
